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An Alameda County Superior Court judge decided that Ryan Jergensen, president of the Sunol Glen Unified School District Board of Trustees, will have to pay former board trustee Denise Kent Romo over $8,000 in attorney fees after he filed and later dropped a temporary restraining order against her.
While Kent Romo told the Weekly she was pleased with the outcome from the March 27 court hearing, she said that ultimately the situation was about more than money.
“The fees that my attorneys and I asked for are fairly nominal,” Kent Romo said. “I actually asked my attorneys to simply request a public apology from Ryan and for him to own the terrible untruthful headlines. That is all I wanted. But, he declined.”
At the time of publication, Jergensen had not responded to requests for comment.
In October 2023, a judge granted Jergensen a temporary restraining order against Kent Romo — who is also the wife of current Trustee Peter “Ted” Romo — because he alleged that certain social media posts she made influenced people to send him threatening messages.
He said the messages referenced Kent Romo’s claims that Jergensen was allegedly a part of certain hate groups after he and Trustee Linda Hurley voted to approve a controversial flag resolution in September that limits the school and district to only display the state and U.S. flags, effectively banning flags like the LGBTQ Pride flag from school grounds.
“She didn’t actually threaten any harm,” Kent Romo’s attorney Erin Bernstein told the Weekly, noting that her client was protected by the First Amendment.
“We made our points to the court that people are free to advocate for the policies that they want, and they don’t have to use perfect language to do it,” Bernstein added. “An elected official can’t take out a restraining order against someone for saying that they think your policies are wrong or bad.”
Bernstein — who is an attorney at Bradley, Bernstein, Sands LLP, a small, woman-owned law firm based in Oakland — said she showed up at the first hearing for the restraining order with the intent to not file any paperwork and have Jergensen drop the order.
But when he didn’t, Bernstein said she had to go through filing the paperwork to get the whole thing dismissed — which cost Kent Romo in attorney fees.
Then in a November court hearing Jergensen decided to drop the restraining order and not pursue a permanent order because Bernstein’s firm was threatening him with lawsuits that would pose “extreme financial pressure” on his family.
Since then, Kent Romo’s legal team has been working on getting her attorney fees reimbursed by Jergensen, which Bernstein said is common in these types of cases under California law so long as it’s reasonable.
Kent Romo said that when the judge sided with her, she felt an “enormous sense of relief and confidence in the legal system.”
She also said that beyond winning the legal fight, her goal was to defend her character.
“(Jergensen) and CM Affairs ran a successful smear campaign against me for a short while,” Kent Romo said. “Untruthful headlines and Ryan’s interviews left me and my family reeling from grim targeted voicemails, messages and social media comment trolls.”
She continued, “Ryan underestimated me as I believe he has underestimated others with whom he has attempted to silence with similar bullying tactics. I was resolved to fight back and challenge Ryan’s disinformation, intimidation and the hurt that he caused me and my family. I also wanted the community to feel empowered to speak out without fear of retribution by an elected official.”
Bernstein said they are waiting for the official court order to be mailed to them this week so that they can then send it to Jergensen. She said she has no reason to believe Jergensen won’t pay the fees and that she hopes it doesn’t get to that point.